Served as the host of the annual Hoover High Senior Beauty Walk at the Alabama Theatre tonight. I only do two Saturday night events a year... this one, and an event down in Demopolis in early October. Saturdays are normally reserved exclusively for my family.

Funny... anytime we mention snow, or the threat of snow... lots of angry e-mails and comments roll in (no matter if we are right or wrong. I don't understand. A stange world we live in these days.

I do ask that you don't send me e-mail asking why the NWS, some TV station, another meteorologist, or Country Boy Eddie has a different forecast. You will need to ask them! We clearly lay our thoughts on the line here. Sometimes we get our neck cut off, but you know where we stand.

Needless to say, with me being out of pocket this afternoon and tonight I have not had much time to review weather data. I will be up extra early in the morning and will have a long post here, and Brian will have a video a little later in the morning.

First glance at the 00Z data really doesn't suggest much change in our forecast for Monday morning. Yes, there will be a chance of some snow over parts of North or Central Alabama. I will lay down some very specific details early tomorrow.

On another subject... For Super Bowl fans, check this out:

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md0125.html

Look for a full discussion posted here by 6:00 a.m. tomorrow...

This week, a friend told me that her daughter was doing a classroom presentation on a weather event. Of course, I have more information on weather events than you can imagine. I asked her what her presentation subject was going to be. She said that they had decided to do it on anything besides Hurricane Katrina, because several people were doing that. The components of the project were to tell about the event, explain why it happened and talk about safety rules. She asked me if I had anything on the tornado that struck the Goshen United Methodist Church on Palm Sunday 1994.

I went back and dug through the files and found all of the original warnings and weather charts from that fateful day. I was working at Channel 42 in those days. The Chief Meteorologist Fred Barnhill had a contract to certify the weather at Rickwood Field, where the movie Cobb was being filmed. He asked me to be the on-camera weatherman for the day. We knew the day before that things were going to be wild. A warm front moved across the state Saturday night, leaving us in the warm sector of a strong low pressure system over the Ohio Valley. Temperatures were in the lower 70s with dewpoints in the upper 60s. The first tornado watch was issued at 9:18 a.m. A Public Severe Weather Outlook was issued at 10:00 a.m., highlighting the threat.

A supercell thunderstorm passed over Birmingham about 10:00 a.m. It was rotating like a top as I watched it visually outside the station. The NWS Birmingham had Doppler radar data from the site at Maxwell AFB. We did not have that data at the television station, as we still utilized the WSR-57 radar at Centreville. Even without Doppler, I knew that storm was going to be a bad one. At 11:27 a.m., the National Weather Service Birmingham issued a tornado warning for southern Cherokee County. Twelve minutes later, the tornado struck the Goshen United Methodist Church, where 20 people perished.

I remember the cold chill that I felt when I heard the first amateur radio report that a church had been struck.. Our worst fears were confirmed at 11:55 when a storm report mentioned that 100 people were trapped in a church. Shortly before 2 p.m., we learned that there were multiple fatalities.

The Saturday map discussion video is on the server at:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

Nice round of rain moved through the state last night. Most everyone got a quarter to a half inch with some locally heavier amounts to about one inch. A few severe thunderstorm warnings were issued west and southwest of Birmingham with several hail reports plus a man was struck by lightning in Tuscaloosa County. Just barely into Febraury and we've recorded a tornado fatality and a lightning injury - 2006 is already shaping up badly but maybe it will get better.

Cold weekend in store for the state as we expect to see temperatures remain in the 40s through Monday. All of our attention right now is on the model developments for Monday. At this writing the 12Z NAM was in and the GFS was coming in, so I did not look at the complete GFS. NAM develops a weak low in the vicinity of Mobile on Monday and tracks it quicking east-northeast. With cold air in place and all of the critical thickness parameters in good agreement, it appears right now that we could see 2 to 4 inches of snow along or just north of the I-20 corridor on Monday. Lest anyone think I'm trying to weasel out of that statement, it is just plain a fact that forecasting snow in the Southeast US is a tough task for tomorrow much less two days out. There are at least eight more model runs between now and Monday, but with what the NAM is showing on this latest run, the threat of winter weather for Monday cannot be ignored.

Two items of good news - first, ground temperatures are warm after one of the wamest Januarys on record and two, the system is forecast to move quickly with a strong flow aloft. But this is definitely a stay tuned stiuation and keep informed.

The 06Z GFS model run shows a slight moderation to temperatures for the end of the week which would feel like a real heat wave after several days in the 40s.

Rest assured that I'm not trying to scare anyone or create a run on the grocery stores, just bringing you the latest interpretation of the forecast models. Stay with ABC 3340 as our weather team monitors the developing situation. I'll have another video map discussion tomorrow morning.

-Brian-

Here is a detailed look at the NAM forecast of accumulated snow for Monday morning at 9:00 a.m.:


The odds of that actually being correct are small. This is simply model output, but one of the purposes of this blog is to share our thought process and let you see what goes on around here.

The 12Z GFS is coming in and there are some differences, as you might expect. Lets not try to get too specific at this point, but just be aware that accumulating snow is possible over parts of North or Central Alabama Monday morning. I will be much more specific tomorrow morning before church.

And, like I stressed below, this is a fast moving system and temperatures will be above freezing for much of the day. Not a long term problem at all, but this could very well impact some school systems and businesses Monday morning. Stay tuned...

Brian Peters will be along in a bit with his weekend video...

But here are the latest numbers off the 12Z NAM just rolling in:

The model spits out 0.38" of liquid Monday morning, with 850 mp temps (about 5,000 feet AGL) down to -3.7. Dewpoints are in the low 20s prior to the precipitation arriving, which means evaporational cooling should bring surface temperatures down to freezing, or maybe even a tad below freezing.

It is beginning to look like this storm system might produce a strip of snow over North/Central Alabama in the 2 to 4 inch range sometime between 2:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon Monday. And, if this is correct, a winter storm watch will be required tomorrow.

But, before you run down to the store and buy milk and bread, keep in mind:

*Snow is ALWAYS a hard call in Alabama. Timing and placement will be adjusted as we get closer.
*This will be a fast moving system. Not a long term issue.
*Temperatures will warm into the upper 30s Monday afternoon, so if we do get snow there will be some melting during the day and roads will be just wet. The snow could change to rain before ending during the day.

Based on the 12Z NAM, the best placement for the heaviest snow could very well be near I-20 with a surface low moving from around Mobile to Marianna, Florida. THIS IS ONLY ONE MODEL RUN, but there has been good agreement with the 00Z data from last night.

I should also note the GFS MOS numbers are laughable in the longer term. Don't trust anyone who forecasts 50s and 30s in this kind of pattern for any significant length of time.

Stay tuned... I will try to make several posts today on thoughts...